Local Pianos: A Road Hazard Touring Masters Are Slaves To Whatever The House Has To Offer

November 17, 1985|By Stephen Wigler, Sentinel Music Critic

If Itzhak Perlman were told that he had to play a different violin in every city where he performed, Perlman probably would leave the concert stage.

But that is precisely the situation that faces almost every touring pianist.

Consider Youri Egorov, who will perform Ravel's G Major Concerto this week with the Florida Symphony Orchestra. Like other FSO guest soloists, Egorov will play the piano that the Carr Performing Arts Centre owns and lets the symphony use without charge.

Egorov performed on the instrument six years ago. Since then, however, he has played thousands of others and, no doubt, will have to adjust himself to it all over again.

''That you never know what kind of an instrument you will be facing at your next concert, and that you have to accustom yourself to it very quickly is one of the hazards of a pianist's life,'' Bella Davidovich, who recently performed in Orlando, said last week in a telephone interview.

Most audiences assume that because a nine-foot concert grand costs between $30,000 and $40,000 and is emblazoned with such well-known logos as Steinway or Baldwin, the instrument must be a great one. In fact, most pianists say, that is rarely the case. And Carr's piano is a case in point.

''For the most part, it's blurred into the mass of bad instruments I've had to play,'' said pianist Jeffrey Kahane, about the instrument on which he performed Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 3 last season. ''But I remember that it had an unbelievably strident upper register and that it was very stiff. It was a pain to play -- both physically and emotionally.''

When Davidovich performed a recital on the Carr piano last month, she, too, complained about a strident treble. Three weeks later, however, she barely remembered it.

''If I usually played wonderful instruments, then it would be easy for me to recall occasions when they're bad,'' she said. ''But it's the other way around.''

If Carr's piano were truly awful, it would be better remembered. Every pianist has at least one unforgettable story to tell.

Gary Graffman, for example, recalls supporting a loose pedal with his foot throughout an entire Rachmaninov concerto at a performance in Minneapolis.

Pianist James Tocco had an even worse experience when he played the Grieg concerto last summer in the Hollywood Bowl.

''There I was, playing in front of 14,000 people,'' Tocco recalled in a telephone interview. ''I was giving the performance of my life. I got to the end of the quiet section in the last movement. In the last F Major arpeggio, the damper pedal fell to the floor with a loud clunk. What could I do? To have continued playing would have been like driving a car without a brake. I got up and left, and the conductor followed me.''

While concert pianos are rarely as bad as the ones Graffman and Tocco remember so vividly, many pianists face difficulties with instruments when they play outside major concert centers such as New York, Chicago or Washington, D.C.

''It's emotionally devastating,'' Kahane said. ''You go out on stage and know that you have to fight an uphill battle. You know that there are people out there in the audience who are saying, 'This guy can't cut it.' ''

Part of the problem is that many of the instruments that concert pianists encounter are owned by multipurpose halls such as the Carr Centre. One week the piano may be used for a Mozart concerto. But the week before, it may have been used for a pounding rock concert in which its delicate alignment was thrown out of whack.

''That piano is supposed to fulfill all the demands at Carr -- whether it's rock music or Chopin,'' said Rudolf Steindl, the piano technician who services it. ''That poor piano -- it has to satisfy the highest demands of a symphony pianist and do all the other things it has to do.''

Many pianists and piano technicians say, however, that problems with American pianos begin at the factory and are made worse by inadequate care.

''It's lack of quality control at the factory and lack of maintenance on the local scene,'' Tocco said.

The New York firm of Steinway & Sons makes about 95 percent of the concert pianos in the United States. Several noted pianists say that Steinway's instruments, as well as those of other companies, sometimes are shipped before they are adequately prepared for concert use.

''All the material for a great piano is still there,'' Graffman said. ''But they come out unfinished and need work.''

While a Steinway spokesman refused to comment last week about these complaints, a spokesman for the Baldwin Piano and Organ Co., the nation's second largest producer of concert pianos, admitted that such criticism is occasionally justified.

''In today's marketplace, there is an increasing emphasis on mass production,'' said Stuart Cole, Baldwin's chief concert technician. ''Some of the pianos produced by fine manufacturers do not always come up to the standards that those companies set themselves in the past.''